The Mr X factor 18: Late August-December 2008

The end of a busy year – upcoming trips to Egypt and New Zealand – my work at the London Ambulance Service – riding with an Ambulance crew in London –sermon at Church - Karaoke night in Soho - Wellington wins the Ranfurly Shield! – Villa, Villa, Villa!! Villa Park football day trip – Long weekend in Italy – NZ friends here, heading home – Dave’s 33rd birthday party

For my London-life photos visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidhodgkinson/sets/72157606164875886/
For my Villa Park trip photos visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidhodgkinson/sets/72157608157675151/

For my Italian holiday photos visit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidhodgkinson/sets/72157609104994742/
For my birthday-bash photos visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidhodgkinson/sets/72157609112399402/

Hi all and Merry Christmas!

Mad, mad, mad busy – that’s how I would describe my life, since about April this year. Perhaps you have been in a similar boat. Hopefully Christmas will provide a nice break for us all!
I’m very glad to say I reached a bit of a finish-line yesterday – I finished work for the year! The great news is that I now have a two-month holiday in front of me! I’ve been hanging out for it for ages. This afternoon I head to Egypt for a two-week tour, with about 20 other travellers (none of whom I know yet) – The Pyramids, the Nile, the lot! My itinerary is at: http://www.kumuka.com/Oases-and-Pharaohs-Dossier.aspx Egypt is surely one of the most amazing countries in the world to visit. It’s been on my list for a while, so this trip will be pretty special.

Then on 8 January, I am heading home for a six-week holiday - first time home since March/April 2007. This will be pretty spectacular too - it will be great to be home once more – to see family, friends, Wellington and New Zealand again. My sister Nicola is also heading home from London for the holiday, on the same plane – so that will (hopefully!)help 26 hours sat in a seat, pass by a bit more easily!

For the first two weeks (Jan 12-23) we will be camping with the whanau (family), at Hahei on the beautiful Coromandel Peninsula. Then we’ll all head back to Wellington and home. I am almost looking forward to NZ more than Egypt, for obvious reasons, but once I get on the plane to Egypt, I’m sure I'll be one excited puppy!!

Anyway, that’s all in the near future – here’s what’s been happening during the most recent four months of my OE:

I have just completed a full-on year of work at the London Ambulance Service (LAS). It looks like I will be working for them again in late February, when I get back from NZ. That seems far away right now. I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given, and for being part of a friendly and focussed process-improvement team (photo below). I’m even more grateful to be able to look back on where I was a year ago, having been laid up at home for 4 months, unemployed and with a stuffed knee & heel. It is so nice to be in a lot better place now, both work and health-wise.

It’s easy to not talk about work, but it takes up a lot of one’s life, and so I would like to try to summarise what I’ve been involved in at the LAS. I’ve enjoyed it, and my work is important to me. I did a Prince2 (Projects in Controlled Environments) project management course in March, and over the remainder of the year I’ve been managing three projects for the LAS. I picked up one in April, and two more in September. They’ve each had their challenges, often feeling somewhat out of control – like constantly juggling too many balls in the air. Over time, I’ve realised that’s reasonably normal, and grown to live with that tension. It’s been quite a learning curve, and has felt fairly pressurised, most of the time. Of late, weekends have felt like a haven.

I picked up the first project in April. It is about developing an electronic stock control system for 27 Ambulance Stations across London. Every main LAS Ambulance station inside the M25 motorway ring has a Stock Store, from which ‘medical consumable’ items are issued, to re-stock ambulances every night. This project is all about moving from a paper-based to an electronic stock management system. This project has unfortunately presented obstacle after obstacle, and has been quite a project to cut my project management teeth on. When I took it on, 3 previous PMs had died on it previously (metaphorically speaking!), and I am adamant there isn’t going to be another.

It has often felt like I am always ploughing through problems and obstacles that keep cropping up. Fortunately I’ve had a good team to work with, and to share the pain/frustration! As I write, we are two-thirds through the first of two Pilots of the system - the second happens in January-February. I am leaving it in capable hands, and in time I’m sure we’ll get the results we need.

The second project is to do with developing an online e-Governance website, to suit the Governance processes required of the LAS, by the NHS authorities. This ranges from Risk Management, to Audits, to National Health standards. The website will be a useful tool for pulling together staff reports and updates in a user-friendly and clearly presented way, for internal & external review. The website has about nine Modules to it, and about four of them will go-live before the end of January – (the first one kicked off this week).

My third project is to do with our Vehicle Resourcing Centre. Every day of the year, its staff have to find spare ambulances for crews that are about to start their shift. As the LAS runs 24/7, ambulances that get damaged or develop a mechanical problem, go ‘VOR’ (Vehicle Off Road) regularly. This needs to be reported better. Every morning the VRC has a big job to locate the spare vehicles, find where they are needed by oncoming crews, and arrange for the Fleet-moving drivers to get to the vehicles via the tube, and relocate them to where they are needed. The aim of the project is to automate the data-flow of all the information that comes into and goes out of the VRC, to speed up and increase the accuracy of vehicle allocation.

Late August I went on an ambulance observation ‘Rideout’ with one of the LAS’s ambulance crews, which was very interesting. I was keen to experience what it’s like ‘on the road’, when the Blue lights go on. One Friday night I headed out to Isleworth in West London and met up with a crew on their shift – I’ll call them ‘Paramedic Braveheart’ and ‘Ambulance Technician Kingfisher’. I’m glad to say that we lost no-one ‘on my shift’. At times I felt like I was part of something being filmed on a TV/movie set: The Bill, when we turned up to a Council Estate to treat a patient, ER when we delivered patients to A&E, and interacted with the hospital staff, and even an under-cover Keanu Reeves, in Point Break, when we an eye on another ambulance crew near the hospital, who had perhaps been on their break too long and should have gone back on duty, before we would ourselves ‘go green’ and make ourselves available to take a call!

Overall it was actually quite an uneventful for a Friday night. I filled in the down time with lots of questions! As you would expect, Braveheart and Kingfisher were very professional and calm during all of their duty. I guess the ambulance is their ‘office’, and they had each been doing this job for a few years, so everything seemed very settled and routine. It was a really interesting experience, and useful work-wise, for me to have done. For more info about the LAS, go to: http://www.londonambulance.nhs.uk/

Anyway, that’s work. Whilst it’s challenging and stimulating, I’m aware it doesn’t totally ‘rock my boat’. I was reminded of this late August, when I was asked to do a sermon at my Church (Holy Trinity Swiss Cottage), one Sunday. Over the summer break a few people from the congregation are given the opportunity to do the sermon. I was one of them, and I loved it! Church work is something I have thought about moving into eventually, and doing this strengthened this sense.

I hadn’t given a sermon at a Church for a few years, so was a bit nervous, and spent much of the weekend putting the talk and Powerpoint slides together (it was on Proverbs 4:20-27 – with a bit of an ‘Antipodean-travel’ twist!). Anyway, once I got started at the Sunday evening service, I seemed to hit my stride - confidence and sense that ‘this is me’ grew. I was buzzing afterwards, and can remember being at work the next day and thinking how plain work felt, having done something the previous night, which I had found so exciting.

Mid-September we also had a very fun Karaoke night with workmates, for a colleague who was leaving - Ashley. He is a project manager, whom I had worked quite closely with, over much of the year. We both started at the LAS either side of last Christmas, working on the same business improvement programme. About mid-year, the ‘normally reserved’ Ashley moved into the centre of our office, from being at a desk in the back corner of our building. He certainly came out of his shell and livened things up! He was quick to join in the Antipodean-dominated office banter, in our open-plan area – and he also helped bring a few other Brits out of their shells, too.

Anyway, to give Ash a good send-off, we headed out for some Karaoke in Soho, which was a blast. I must say, I do quite enjoy it, and sung my fair share of songs (some would say it was hard to get the microphone off me!) – mainly ‘80s rock anthems are my favourites!!

And then, shock of all shocks, back in New Zealand, Wellington finally got their hands on the Ranfurly Shield a.k.a. ‘The Log o’Wood’ – and one of the longest losing sporting streaks in my life, was over. For those not sure what the Shield is all about, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranfurly_Shield. The Shield is the most prized trophy in New Zealand sport. Auckland were the holders, and had been stumbling to close but successful defences all season, whereas Wellington was unbeaten and looking likely – though we were by no means assuming we would win. We had been heartbroken at least once - in 2001, thanks to referee Steve Walsh, Canterbury’s 16th player that day.

The ‘Shield fever’ alert went out in London a couple of weeks a prior to the game, and my Wellington mate, Rob Edgecombe emailed out a list of Wellington’s last 12 unsuccessful attempts to win the Shield, since 1982 - when we last held it. Our record made for awful reading - particularly one game in 1996, where we got totally thrashed – ask James Edgecombe about that one - I think he took my Wellington scarf to it!

Early one September Saturday morning in London, two ardent and quietly-optimistic Wellington fans, took the tube across to the other side of London and congregated at Danny Hayes’ flat – another Wellington boy over here. We were decked out in our Wellington colours (some less-so than others!), and watched Wellington finally win the Shield 27-0 – a complete shut out, of an awful Auckland team – they actually looked beaten, before they walked onto the pitch, and they played accordingly. All we had to do was capitalise on their mistakes – we did, the Shield was Wellington’s, finally!! Rob, Danny and I celebrated the win with a ‘Shield breakfast’ – a big fry-up at a greasy spoon near Danny’s place. We come from Shield country!!

The sporting theme continued in October, when I finally made it to Villa Park, up in Birmingham, to watch my team, Aston Villa, play Portsmouth in the English Premier League. This continued a family tradition going back to my Dad’s Dad (and perhaps even before that), who used to stand on the terraces supporting ‘the Villa’, week in week out, whilst living in Birmingham.

I had had a quick tour around Villa Park back in August 2005, when up in Birmingham, and glimpsed the hallowed turf. But this was the real thing. I organised a day trip from London. My sister Nicola wasn’t going to miss out – being family, she had to be on this pilgrimage! My Kiwi mates, Mike & Angela also joined us, on our day-trip to the footy - £5 bus up, £23 football ticket, £10 train back – less than £40 plus food and drink money – not bad!!

We left London at 10am on the Megabus coach, arriving around 1pm in Birmingham, having glimpsed Villa Park Stadium from the M6. We had lunch, and looked around the New St shopping mall, before jumping on the train out to Witton Station, and walking to the ground with the rest of the Villa faithful.
Then we headed inside and grabbed our seats for the 3pm kick-off, and soaked up the atmosphere, before watching an eventful but somewhat-disappointing 0-0 draw unfold! There were quite a few chances at both ends, but none were capitalised on. Right at the end there was some sustained pressure by Villa, at our end of the ground, and we were willing and shouting for us to score. But Portsmouth were tall and very good defensively, and couldn’t be broken down.
I guess I couldn’t turn up for the first time and watch Villa just turn it on for me, so a goal-less draw was in a way quite beautiful. I’ll definitely be back for more next year – the day-trip thing worked well – a long day out, but it’s all about being a travelling supporter. Villa currently lies 4th in the Premier League, and so their plan to upset the status-quo of the big four, is still on. Worth a punt too I reckon, to win the Premiership, currently at odds of 200-1. Up the Villa!! The revolution has only just begun!

In late October, I finally made it to Italy for the first time. Prior to heading home from living in the UK, my good Kiwi friends Mark and Rebekah Zwies (nee Dennison) had bought a VW Campervan and set off for 4 months touring Europe. I joined them and Mark's sister Julie, for a long weekend in Italy.

Despite some mechanical problems with the Camper, and me being quite unwell (read: run down from work!), we had a great time. Julie and I flew into Perugia airport, and met up early Friday afternoon with Mark & Beks. We explored Perugia’s old town, before picking up the Van from the local VW factory.

Mark & Beks had quickly become quite popular with one of the mechanics there – Stefano. He owned the exact same model VW Camper as them, and was also a passionate rugby fan – so some Kiwis in a VW Camper were quite the hit. So much so, that Stefano helped get the VW Camper fixed, and then hosted us for the best part of two days at his house in Umbria, near the shores of Lake Trasimeno.

Before we headed to Stefano’s place, we headed to the town of Assisi where Saint Francis of Assisi lived and died. We joined the many people who were making their pilgrimage to St Francis’s burial place, and having a look around the whole Basilica, famous for its art history – paintings and frescos by Giotto, Martini, Lorenzetti and the like. The masses filed down into the crypt, round the Saint’s tomb, then up and into the main Cathedral – sort of like a tour of Westminster Cathedral. For more on St Francis, check out http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/258.html

Unfortunately, we could only be there very briefly. This was because we had a lunch to attend with our new Italian best-friend, Stefano! This was one of those special times when your are touring, where genuine hospitality, and the chance to get to know a local for longer than 10 minutes, occurs – it was like being welcomed into their life – and seeing what the Italian lifestyle and culture is all about.
We drove to Lake Trasimeno in the lovely Autumn sun – lovely and warmth, compared to London! Stefano met us wearing an All Blacks top (having just returned from watching a rugby match in Perugia!), and led us back to his place, where he cooked us a pasta lunch, washed down with red wine, before we headed out for a walk around his nearby town of Castiglione del Lago – on the shores of Lake Trasimeno, the lake where the Carthaginian General Hannibal, defeated the Romans, in 217BC. It was a lovely walk around the town’s castle, perched on a peninsula jutting out into the lake (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Trasimeno)
In the evening we met his wife Sylvia, who had made it home from work. We had pizza and more red wine, chatting into the evening, before retiring to the Campers, where we slept overnight.
Next morning we bade a fond farewell, mentioning to Stefano, that if he makes it to NZ for the 2011 Rugby World Cup, we can probably arrange free board for him around most of the country!! We were on the road again. Mark dialled in the Sat-Nav and I rode shot-gun as we drove through the beautiful countryside, towards the hilltop town of Montalcino, in southern Tuscany.
Notwithstanding the experience we had just had with Stefano and his family, the afternoon in Montalcino was the highlight of the trip for me. It was their annual festival – ‘Sagra del Tordo’ (see http://www.tuscany-charming.it/en/newsevents/thrushfestival.asp). Every year, for a few centuries at least, citizens of the four quarters of Montalcino dress in their colours and celebrate their town and way of life - Viva Italia!!

After much feasting and merriment, late afternoon, everyone gathers in a field beside the town's castle, for the annual archery contest - to find the best archer. Glory and bragging rights are at stake for the winning quarter of town! We joined in the fun - it was a fantastic afternoon out - having a marae-like feel to it, everyone having fun together, great food, and a special event to be part of. For the photos and the rest of the story, see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidhodgkinson/sets/72157609104994742/

I’ll summarise November and December happenings quickly:

After about three years living in the UK, my good friend Angela left to head home to NZ in early November, which was a bit sad. She didn’t really want to leave – but needs must etc... We’ve done a few trips with various mates, which have always been great. Mark and Rebekah are also on their way home now (minus their Camper and Stefano!!). Also, Cuffy, my flatmate of 2.5 years, has left the building - for NZ too. Goodbye all you guys – been great hanging with you all over here!!

I had really fun 33rd birthday celebration on November 8th, at the Wellington Hotel and Bar, next to Waterloo Station. Scroll back to the start for the photo website. Two weekends later, I went to Chichester for the weekend, for our Church’s Alpha course, which was great. We went for a walk on the south coast on the Saturday afternoon – it was lovely to see the sea, and I got some cool photos of the Isle of Wight in the setting sun. December has consisted of the rush to tie things up as best as possible at work, some fun office & department meals and drinks out, and me getting prepared for my Egypt trip – lots of medical stuff to buy, vaccine injections to have, foreign currency to arrange, gear to sort, Lonely Planet to read etc... I’ve been looking forward to this trip for a while. All I have to do now is post this blog, pack and then head to Heathrow for my 5pm flight!

I would like to wish you all a safe and happy Christmas! If you are in NZ, I hope to catch up with as many of you as I can, in Jan/Feb – I’ll be aiming to spend time in Auckland, the Coromandel, Wellington, and Christchurch.

Every blessing, and love from here!

Mr X-Factor Dave

The Mr X factor 17: August 2008

Scotland holiday – Edinburgh with Ken & Rosemary - Haggis tour of the highlands – awesome guide: Russell – Loch Ness – Quilt wearing & Highland life show - Cruise on Loch Ness – mad Nessie scientist! - Inverness – Battle of Culloden – Bonar Bridge & Carbisdale Castle –Western Highlands – Stack Polly – amazing scenery – Eileen Donan Castle – Isle of Skye – stunning sunset on Skye – Totternish Peninsula – Old Man of Storr – stunning hilltop views – Kilt Rock Waterfall – Sound of Sleat – Swim at Silver Sands of Morar – Glenfinnan Monument – Oban – Glen Coe (massacre) – Stirling: William Wallace Monument – To Glasgow – relaxing weekend with Renee and Alan – To St Andrews – week slowing down, chilling out with John & Jannah + Theo – exploring St Andrews – East Neuk – home to London by train

For my Scotland holiday photos visit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidhodgkinson/sets/72157607267777474/

Gotta love Scotland!! For two weeks in August I had a much needed holiday there. The English ‘summer’ was (once again) so poor that I headed to Scotland in search of better weather. I had a great time. After catching the train north, my first weekend was spent in Edinburgh, where I caught up with an old NZ high school mate Ken, and his cycling-mad partner, Rosemary (she has 7 bikes!). We chilled out at Leith Harbour on the Firth of Forth, near where they live, catching up on gossip and sharing ideas about Scotland, travel, common friends, NZ and UK life etc....

Next day we cycled into town and headed to the world famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival for a play at the Pleasance Courtyard, then down to the Meadows Common to catch the vibe, and watch some of the busking acts, before more cycling, then another play (this one in a squash court!) before heading home.
On the Monday I rendezvoused with about 80 other travellers on High St at Haggis Tours office – we were all off on our respective tours of Scotland. Our minibus took about 30 people and we were blessed with Russell, a good driver and superb guide – passionate about Scotland, history, and sharing it with the travellers on his bus. He had just the right blend of story-telling ability, history knowledge, humour, and Scottish rock bands on his sound system, to keep us informed and entertained on the tour.
So, where did we go? Well, it was a five-day trip around the Scottish highlands, in an anti-clockwise direction around Scotland, starting from Edinburgh. The link to the itinerary is here: http://www.haggisadventures.com/Scotland/Compass-Buster.html

Day 1 was a drive north into the Central Highlands. We were into Loch country quite quickly, including Loch Lochy, Loch Oich, and of course Loch Ness. We ended up at the southern end of Loch Ness, in the town of Fort Augustus, where we had a presentation for tourists on how to workshop on how to put on a quilt properly (the size of the material, before it gets folded and arranged to be wearable was amazing – about the size of a sheet for a large double bed!).

We also had a presentation on how the highland Scots lived centuries ago – in their highland huts in the depths of dark and freezing winters – very interesting, though not very appealing. Thank goodness for central heating!

After this we headed down to the waterfront where we witnessed the most stunning rainbow I have ever seen. After a light shower, it just appeared – it was so vibrant, wide and close to us.
After this stunning surprise we boarded a boat for an hour’s cruise on Loch Ness - in search of course, of Nessie. Our ship, was actually a research vessel, funded by MIT in the USA – and it had a passionate, if somewhat obsessed, ‘Nessie expert’.
He proceeded to intrigue us with his arguments & questions about the existence of the monster itself. He’d been working on the Loch for years and actually claims to have glimpsed Nessie. His boat was kitted out with all sorts of sea scanning equipment – depth sounder, radar and tracking devices recording the topography of the Loch-floor we had passed over. It definitely made us think more critically, about whether Nessie actually exists, and we discussed the cruise (and our obsessed Loch Ness guide!) for a while, in the pub afterwards.
Next day we headed further north, along the edge of Loch Ness, and eventually to Inverness briefly, before heading to Culloden, where we visited the scene of the Battle of Culloden from 1746. There was an interesting museum taking us through the detail of the battle, which was the final battle of the Jacobite uprising fought on British soil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Culloden).

Prior to this we had had a full explanation from Russell about the background to the Battle of Culloden – the Jacobites and Bonny Prince Charlie in particular, so we found this exhibition very informative. Naturally I had my Lonely Planet Britain at the ready, to fill in the gaps with a bit of reading on the bus, and solidify all the interesting history we were learning. The fierce Scottish national patriotism is always inspiring, much of it stemming from the historical battles with the hated English, over the centuries. After lunch in Inverness we headed north-west, staying overnight near Bonar Bridge, at Carbisdale Castle, allegedly a haunted castle. We were doing a lot of miles in the bus and by now I had struck up some cool conversations down the back of the bus, with a few people, Leonie and Matt in particular, each from Australia, and on three-month trips over here. I was loving being on holiday and just driving through the countryside, thinking about anything and not having any pressures.
During day 3 we were heading into the Scottish highlands proper – our first true glimpse of this was the mountainously shaped Stack Polly landmark, as we headed for the Isle of Skye. This was rugged countryside – quickly reminding me of New Zealand – sort of a cross between the Marlborough Sounds and the scenery from the stunning drive from Geraldine to Queenstown. From there, it was a drive through stunning scenery and Scottish highland coastal villages, including Ullapool, where I bought another patch for my Scout blanket – 11 in total purchased on this trip!). It was an overcast but still and peaceful Scottish day. However, the thatched roofs with a series of rocks hanging off their edges via wires, was a stark reminder of how the fierce northern wind can blow and blow much of the year. The afternoon consisted of fish’n’chips for lunch at Kyle of Lochalsh. Then we headed for the lovely Eileen Donan Castle – filmed in the movie Entrapment. We had a look around the castle – disappointingly there was no sign of Catherine Zeta-Jones!
Then we headed across the controversially built Skye Bridge (abominably badly project-managed, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skye_Bridge) and we were onto the Isle of Skye. On cue, the weather had cleared up during the afternoon, and after dinner in our hostel, four of us headed off on a 20-minute walk around the coastal rocks to a nearby castle. There we got some stunning sunset shots looking westwards, with the township of Kyleakin, the soaring Skye Bridge, and the western Scottish islands silhouetted by the sun moving towards the horizon. The next day was spectacular on the weather front - Russell said it was the best day he had seen since Christmas day 2007 – perfect blue sky, visibility forever and warm temps – it made for a magic day on the beautiful Isle of Skye. We headed for the Totternish Peninsula. Russell was full of stories, history and commentary, one story ending with us holding a group face-washing ceremony in the Sligachan River, beneath the Black Cuillin mountains.

Next we climbed a hill for a view of the ‘Old Man of Storr’ rock stack and surrounding cliffs, before driving up a steep and windy road for an even more stunning vista of the Totternish Peninsula. With every corner we turned, and the view was stunning – reminding me how much I love and miss the coast, whilst living in London.

After this, we stopped for the Kilt Rock Waterfall – again more stunning coast, before winding our way down the other side of the Totternish via Uig, and finally to Armadale, where we met our ferry which carried us across the ‘Sound of Sleat’ (beautifully alliterated that - could have been in that horse race in ‘The Twelfth Man Again’ – Go Silver Sovereign!!!) to the mainland.

In the warm sunshine, we stopped at the Silver Sands of Morar, where four of us Antipodeans went for a swim in the lovely bay, while the rest of the tour group sat on the beach or played Frisbee.

We drove south stopping at the Glenfinnan Monument, famous for where Bonny Prince Charlie made landfall in 1745 (http://www.rampantscotland.com/famous/blfamcharlie.htm) - a lovely glen, and a land-loched [sic!] loch, this one.
From there we headed past Fort William, catching a glimpse of Ben Nevis, before finally ending up in the lovely seaside fishing town of Oban, for our final night of the tour. We dropped our gear at the hostel, freshened up, then headed out for a restaurant meal in the respective groups we had merged into over the previous 4 days. Later, we all met up in a pub for some drinks and a cool time reflecting on the week and chatting over some drinks.
Next day the weather had changed as we headed to the beautiful valley of Glen Coe. This place reminded me of Arthur’s Pass in NZ. Russell told us about the horrific story of the Glen Coe massacre of 1692 (http://www.rampantscotland.com/features/glencoe.htm).

From there, we drove across Rannoch Moor, where Ewan McGregor filmed the Trainspotting scene – ‘It’s shit being Scottish...!’. Then it was onto the pivotal town of Stirling - ‘control Stirling and you control Scotland’, it being the key transport route between the highlands and southern Scotland. We drove across Stirling Bridge, and headed for a quick walk up to the William Wallace monument.
Of course, with the success of the Braveheart movie in the late 1990s, the Wallace legend is alive and well. But Russell picked the fact and fiction of the movie and legend apart for us, as we left Stirling, and I was glad to have bought a book on Wallace’s life, so I could read up on it in more depth, later.

Having got our group photo, finally we drove across the Firth of Forth Bridge again, and wound our way into Edinburgh. The trip was over, and after a fun and fascinating trip, we went our separate ways, with email addresses swapped (I am a non-Facebooker – Don’t give in people - Rage against the machine!!).

It wasn’t the end of my Scottish sojourn though - I was only half way through!! I jumped on a train from Edinburgh, and headed to Glasgow, where I spent a relaxing weekend with Renee Milkop-Kerr (someone I first knew in Kindergarten!), and her husband Alan.

We explored Glasgow by bike on the Saturday, cycling alongside the River Clyde – the historical source of Glasgow’s wealth - before having a lovely meal in, chilling out and catching up on how things had been going on for us, in Glasgow and London respectively. On the Sunday we went to a nice cafe for lunch, and then early evening we went for a walk in the nearby Botanical Gardens.
Monday 18 August was the start of the second week of my holiday. I headed to St Andrews. I was off to stay with my good NZ friends studying at St Andrews, John and Jannah Dennison, and their son Theo. This was a lovely and relaxing week. I wanted to slow down and find some stillness, restore some balance, sleep, read books, hang out in some cafes, reflect on stuff, seek the Lord. John and Jannah had been living in Scotland a year by now (John is studying for a PhD), and so were reasonably well established, and had their work-life patterns seemingly well built around Theo. John would be off to study early in the morning, Jannah was either at home or on a trip around town with Theo, and I was able to wake up a bit later (yay for earplugs!), then explore the lovely St Andrews by bike, before ending up in a cafe, reading, journaling or watching the St Andrews scene out the cafe window.

Two of the cafes also had backgammon, so I was able to teach John how to play this strategic and centuries-old game, so we would meet up for a game or three, during one of his study breaks. In the evenings, it was great to hang with John and Jannah and chat about all sorts of things, once Theo was down. We also did a few trips in the car, across the East Neuk Peninsula, to the quaint fishing village of Pittenweem in particular - hanging out in a favourite cafe of John and Jannah's.

It was great to check out St Andrews, too - the golf course of course, as well as the Cathedral remains, surrounding cemetery, and St Andrews Castle.

The Beijing Olympics were also on, and we managed to get down to a pub one afternoon to watch Kiwi Nick Willis run the race of his life to get the Bronze medal in the 1500m final. I know some of his family from Wellington, so it was great to cheer him (deafen the pub!!) down the home straight. Well done Nick - fantastic stuff!!

Alas, my two-week break neared its end, and on the Bank Holiday Monday (25 August) I said goodbye to John, Jannah and Theo, before jumping on the train and heading south for London. Another memorable trip done!!